Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Younger - 2.01/ 2.02 - Tattoo You / The Mao Function - Preview

The bottom line for the 1-hour premiere of season 2 is that if you liked the first season, you're going to love these episodes. If you haven't seen Younger, it's a great time to check it out. The premise is that Liza, a former New Jersey housewife, finds out that her husband has gambled away everything they have. They separate and she moves to the city to stay with her good friend Maggie but can only get a job in the publishing world by pretending to be 26 years old. There she works as an assistant to Diana, a bitter Devil Wears Prada type boss just looking for love, and Kelsey, whom she becomes fast friends with…except that she's lying to her about her age. Liza also meets Josh, a hot young tattoo artist she has little in common with except hot sex. At the close of season 1, Liza tells Josh her true age and things are a bit rocky to say the least. Also Liza's daughter is scheduled to come back home after studying abroad in India, making Liza's double life even more complicated.

Season 2 starts with Liza getting ready to welcome Caitlin back but torn on whether she should tell her daughter the truth or not. She decides to postpone the big conversation, which comes back to haunt her later on. Caitlin is your stereotypical, flighty late teen who is very tolerant of some things and not tolerant at all of others. While I expected her to be the big obstacle in the overall season 2 story, that doesn't appear to be the case and I think how they handle it will benefit the whole series. Plus the first episode works best when it focuses on Maggie and Liza's relationship anyway. Maggie is a rock of support for Liza through a big misunderstanding and common sense when Liza is faltering. The second episode focuses more on Josh and Kelsey. While I could have done without most of Josh's storyline, Kelsey's is fascinating and may actually give Hilary Duff the heft the character needs to stand out on the show a bit more. Kelsey wasn't as clearly defined last season as I would have liked and Duff is capable of doing so much more with the role. The end of 2.02 gives lots of possibilities for the character.

Highlights:

Eliza and the dots
The Caitlin issue at least for the time being
Josh as the voice of reason
Kelsey's new opportunity
Maggie as the voice of reason
Profit through dentistry
Spiteful Diana is a whole lot more fun than desperately lonely Diana

Final Tidbits:

A new ship is born and consummated
Season 3 has already been picked up by the network even though season 2 hasn't aired yet

"And then she said that I was having a midlife crisis." "Your crisis was your boring life before this."
"Have you ever heard of punctuation?"
"Hon, let's never stop lying to each other. Okay?"
"Honestly, it's like you've got some form of literary Tourette's."
"Okay, can we stop doing the math now?"
"Wow. If she was okay with the sex change, maybe this won't be such a big deal."

One part teacher librarian - one part avid TV fan, Dahne is a contributing writer for SpoilerTV, where she recaps, reviews, and/or creates polls for Teen Wolf, The 100, Grimm, How to Get Away with Murder, The Librarians, and others. She also runs the annual Character Cup. She's addicted to Twitter, live tweets a multitude of shows each week, and co-hosts The 100 "Red-Shirted" and Teen Wolf "Welcome to Beacon Hills" podcasts for Southgate Media Group. Currently she writes a Last Week in TV column for her blog and SpoilerTV. ~ "I speak TV."